Atlas of the Living Dish
A field guide to the little machines of light, appetite, contact and chance.
Each plate sketches a working rule of PreyLab. These are fictional organisms in a finite three-dimensional simulation. The drawings explain mechanisms; they are not microscope photographs or promises that a particular encounter will succeed.
A body has borders.
The visible drawing is only one layer. Contact uses a bounded physical shape in XYZ space. A mouth has its own capture reach, and senses extend farther still. A large hunter cannot squeeze through a gap just because its center point fits.
Cilia and glow are decorative. Food, body and contact rules remain distinct.
The lamp is also a cost.
Algae convert local light and dissolved minerals into usable energy. A glowing cell spends its own resources to make light; emission capacity and power must both be present. Day and night change available light and visual perception. A diurnal hunter cannot keep seeing unlit prey in darkness simply because it saw them earlier.
A trail without a name.
Cells and algae can leave finite organic cues. Other compounds signal alarm or social activity. Currents carry and dilute them. Receptors sample local mixtures; inherited response can attract or repel, while hunger and threat change the decision. The receiver does not know the sender's identity.
A cue is evidence nearby, never a perfect arrow to food.
Shelter is geometry.
Algae remain individual bodies. Adhesion joins neighbors with breakable bonds, while contact keeps cells from passing through one another. Small grazers may fit between strands. Larger hunters must find a body-sized route, perhaps at another depth. A grazer's inherited algae affinity can keep it nearby; cover seeking and danger still compete with hunger and contact.
Every burst spends something.
Toxins have a kind: irritant, motor or sensory. A cell synthesizes a finite store from material and energy. It may leave a thin trail or release a pulse when local circumstances trigger it. A larger spread reaches farther but dilutes the same released amount. Matching resistance and detoxification reduce or clear absorbed effects; neither grants immunity.
A genome is a possibility.
A family supplies the basic body and metabolism. Alleles tune such things as size, motility, reception, toxin release, storage, bonding and reproduction within family limits. Division and compatible exchange can pass altered combinations to descendants. Energy and matter stay finite. The same genotype may thrive in one niche and fail in another.
In the catalog, choose a role, filter by its working traits, then inspect the meter ranges and costs before placement. Watch the living specimen to learn what it actually does.